SWITCH BLADER IN-LINE CHAMP KC BOUTIETTE TOOK TO THE ICE WITH EASE

Four hours after gliding to a 12th-place finish in the 5,000meters at the ice speed skating world championships in Baselgadi Pine, Italy, in February 1995, KC Boutiette took a train andthen a plane to Orlando, where he got in some training before aphoto shoot for Rollerblade, the company that sponsors his othercareer, as an in-line skater. The morning after the shoot he gotback on a plane to Germany to resume training with the U.S.speed skating team. "I woke up the next day, and I had no ideawhere I was," says Boutiette, 25. "That's happened a couple oftimes."

Such are the hazards of traveling so far so fast. Since shockingthe ice skating world in January 1994 by winning the U.S.Olympic Trials after just six weeks of training in the sport,Boutiette has challenged Deion Sanders for his unofficial titleas the premier two-sport athlete. Boutiette finished 1995 as thethird-ranked in-line skater on the National Points Circuit; inJanuary he won the U.S. speed skating championships at 1,500 and10,000 meters; and last month he finished fifth at the WorldAllround Championships. "It's hard to make somebody understandhow difficult it is to do what he's done," says Olympic speedskating gold medalist Dan Jansen.

Four years ago Boutiette's only connection with competitivesports was watching an occasional college football game ontelevision. He was living with friends and working inconstruction in Federal Way, Wash., 15 miles north of hishometown, Tacoma. "My biggest thrill was coming home from work,drinking beer with my buddies, waking up the next day and maybeplaying Ping-Pong," he says.

At 5'10" and 160 pounds, with an earring in each ear and hishead shaved to resemble Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber, Boutiettelooks as if he belongs at a rave rather than in a race. Andthough he's the U.S. men's best hope for a speed skating medalat the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, as well as one of theworld's elite in-line distance skaters, he seems almostunaffected by his success. "I've been wanting to get a job at aSubway or something," he says. "There's a lot of little thingslike that I want to do, but I just don't have time."

Not that Boutiette regrets the direction his life has takensince he quit his job shoveling gravel in 1992 to try his luckas a professional in-line skater. Boutiette had raced on rollerskates as a kid, but he hadn't skated competitively in fiveyears when he tried out a friend's new in-line skates inDecember 1991. Two months later Boutiette flew to Florida forthe Orlando Classic, which drew a top national field of quad andin-line skaters, and won the 5,000-meter indoor race. Thatprompted him to change his life. "I was sick of being ahalf-assed worker," Boutiette says. "I decided I wanted to beeither a good worker or a good skater. I was still young, so Itried skating."

Boutiette moved to Southern California, the in-line hub, anddevoted himself to training. In 1993 he signed with Rollerblade,and by October he had won the International In-line SkatingAssociation Championship and the '93 Rollerblade America Tour,which was then the most competitive.

That summer, as part of his in-line training, Boutiette workedout on ice skates and liked it. So when the in-line seasonended, Dave Smessaert, Geo/Rollerblade's team manager, invitedBoutiette to stay at his place in Milwaukee, where Boutiettecould continue training at the Pettit National Ice Center.

Boutiette didn't own ice skates, so he bought blades and mountedthem on a pair of his in-line boots. To his surprise, he soonwas turning out lap times good enough to qualify him for theOlympic speed skating trials, which would be held in Milwaukeein late December. Boutiette borrowed a video of Norway's goldmedal skater, Johann Olav Koss, to learn technique, and he beganto visualize winning races.

"I got a call from KC one afternoon, and he was screaming intothe phone," says Boutiette's mother, Mickey, who still lives inTacoma. "He said, 'Mom, I just won the 5,000- and 10,000-metertrials, and the press is all over me! I can't believe this ishappening!' I thought, My god, I guess he's serious about this."

He went to the Olympics and, even though his qualifying timesweren't among the top 32 in the world, he got to make his debutin the 1,500 meters when Jansen pulled out to focus on the1,000. Boutiette finished 39th.

He's always seeking challenges. Last April he and a friend triedbiking from Milwaukee to Seattle, videotaping much of theirjourney, which included sleeping in abandoned barns and hitchinga ride during a snowstorm with three Deadheads and a dog in aVolvo. "Cross-countrying was great," says Boutiette, who plansto bike from Milwaukee to Atlanta this summer to attend theOlympics. "It was like, anything you want to do, you can do. Theone thing was I always had a credit card to fall back on, sonext time we won't take it."

With Jansen and Bonnie Blair now retired from skating,Boutiette--who still calls the training room at the Pettit Center"the cool-guy room," as if he doesn't belong there--has put hisinimitable stamp on U.S. speed skating.

"We're now known as the wild team, and KC's a big part of that,"says Gerard Kemkers, a U.S. national team coach. "Who knows howgood he can be? He's still only learning the details."

COLOR PHOTO: LOU CAPOZZOLA Last year Boutiette led an in-line pack in New York, and last month he flashed his form on ice in Germany. [KC Boutiette in-line skating]COLOR PHOTO: BERND LAUTER/BONGARTS [See caption above--KC Boutiette ice skating]